6.  The applicants, Messrs Asadov, Mamedov, Aliyev, Jamalov, and Mehdiyev, were born in 1963, 1970, 1965, 1962 and 1968 respectively and live in Baku.
7.  On 20 December 2001 the applicants founded a public association named “Karabakh Warriors” (“Qarabağ Qaziləri” İctimai Birliyi). This was a non-profit organisation aimed at providing aid to the Karabakh war invalids and protection of their interests.
8.  After the founders' meeting, the applicants filed an application for the association's state registration with the Ministry of Justice, the government authority responsible for the state registration of legal entities. In accordance with the domestic law, a non-governmental organisation acquired the status of a legal entity only upon its state registration by the Ministry of Justice. While the applicants claimed that they had filed the application in late December 2001, the Government submitted that it had been officially received by the Ministry on 8 February 2002.
9.  On 15 February 2002 the Ministry of Justice returned the registration documents to the applicants without taking any action, i.e. without issuing a state registration certificate or an official refusal to register the association. In the cover letter, the Ministry noted in general terms that the association's charter did not comply with Article 13.1 of the Law On Non-Governmental Organisations, which set out general requirements for the contents of a charter.
10.  The applicants redrafted the charter in line with the Ministry's comments and on 12 April 2002 re-applied for the state registration submitting a new version of the charter. Although the applicants expected to receive a response from the Ministry within the statutorily required five-day period after the re-submission of the registration documents, they did not receive anything from the Ministry for the following three months.
11.  In July 2002, the applicants applied to the Yasamal District Court, complaining that the Ministry “evaded” registering their organisation and asking the court to oblige the Ministry to register it. In the meantime, on 19 July 2002 the Ministry sent a letter to the applicants, informing them that the documents were again returned “with no action taken” by the Ministry. This time the reason for declining the registration was the applicants' failure to list in the charter the terms of service of the association's governing bodies, as required by Article 25.1 of the Law On Non-Governmental Organisations. More specifically, the Ministry noted that the charter did not specify the term of office of the association's Deputy President. The applicants alleged that they had never seen this letter before it was presented to them during the court proceedings.
12.  On 7 August 2002 the Yasamal District Court dismissed the applicants' claim, finding nothing unlawful in the actions of the Ministry. The court found that the association's charter had not been drafted in accordance with the requirements of the domestic law. The applicants appealed, claiming that the requirement to specify in the charter the term of office of the association's Deputy President was “absurd” and could not be used as justification for evading registering the organisation. On 11 October 2002 the Court of Appeal upheld the district court's judgment. On 12 February 2003 the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal's decision.
13.  In the meantime, the applicants again redrafted the association's charter to take account of the Ministry's latest remarks and again re‑submitted the registration documents. On 19 April 2006 the Ministry of Justice registered the public association as a legal entity and issued a state registration certificate.